Whats the largest group of breeding monkeys in a UK zoo/

I certainly havent been nasty or rude even

i think your definition of "rude' might be different to mine....

I dont know why you have bothered to reply to this post as you have offered nothing of value .
I would also suggest go and buy a dictionary and look at the definitions.

im certainly not bothered by brave keyboard warriors trying to hijack a thread to give clever dick replies.

i really wish i hadnt bothered asking the question in the first place .

going off on tangents and pulling a question apart for what purpose?Frankly i find it nit picking and rather pointless.

I spend my working life dealing with people who are irrationally ill-tempered and lacking in common courtesy. A forum such as this is an escape from that, rather than a place on which to encounter more people who respond in such a fashion. And this is the way human discourse works, by the way. Somebody says something (in this case, your initial question about monkeys). Someone else responds and the conversation is taken in a different direction. Someone else responds and it goes in a different direction again. What doesn't - or, at least, shouldn't - happen is that the first person throws a tantrum and demands that everybody go back to talking about the price of turnips, or the state of the M25, or the largest group of monkeys in a zoo because that is what was being discussed initially.

So, in this instance, a question that at first sight might have seemed a little uninteresting and closed turns into something much more open, interesting, and wide-ranging, encompassing semantics, definitions, expectations, hierarchies of animals, cultural demands. But because you react as you do to a perfectly reasonable - if not unarguable - point about what it is that a zoo might or might not be, things descend, and I start my Saturday morning (absurdly) feeling that some bloke I have never met, and am never likely to meet, is shouting at me (and others). So, much as I would like to discuss whether renaming the Blue Reef Aquarium Hastings the Hastings Zoo would lead to mass discontent in East Sussex (an interesting question) I won't because I have no real desire to engage with someone who feels that the way to "talk" to strangers is as you "talk" in the examples quoted above.
 
I would say the following are in the running for the answer to the original question.

Trentham Monkey Forest- Barbary Apes.

Then from the other (less debatable) 'Zoos'..

Paignton- Hamadryas.
Longleat- Rhesus( still there?).
Port Lympne- Guinea Baboon.

Chester- Sulawesi Macaques/Liontailed Macaques/Mandrill.
Howletts- Lion-tailed Macaques.
Edinburgh-Geladas.
YWP Guinea Baboon.
Flamingo Park. Hamadryas.
Knowsley. Olive/grass baboon.
Colchester. Mandrill.

Someone would have to count them all to see which came out the clear winner- I suspect it would be one of the first three (apart from Trentham that is) rather than any from the second group.
 
Last edited:
A zoo (short for zoological park, zoological garden, or animal park, and also called a menagerie) is a facility in which animals are confined within enclosures, displayed to the public, and in which they may also be bred.

One species or umpteen species, it's still a zoo!
 
As I get older I find that I quote Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass with increasing frequency.

'When I use a word,'Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything.

Alan
 
Blimey! That's a disproportionately grumpy response to a fairly innocuous comment.... For what it's worth, I'd wholly agree with Nanook's post - just because it only has one species, Trentham Forest is not not a zoo.... Otherwise, where do we draw the line? Five species? Ten? Twenty? Wild animals, artificially maintained, on show to the public = a zoo.

Thanks Sooty, I`m sure you will agree - I think I should know what a zoo is by now!! It is a loose definition I will admit, and probably quite an old one.
But I don`t need a dictionary, or a rude idiot to tell me otherwise.
 
For the record I agree with everything Sooty said. Except of course about their definition of zoo; I think one species is not enough. :p

okay well lets try this then.
taking our zoo chatters hat off and we are just normal fee paying members of the public no special interest in zoos etc apart from a day out .
if say sealife centre Hastings changed its name to Hastings Zoo
or crocs of the world became Oxford zoo or birdland became Surrey zoo do you think people on arrival at any of these new zoos would feel short changed or mislead in any way.Of course they would

You are correct to point out the 'general public' (I love the use this word has on ZC), has a different, narrower definition of the word 'zoo'. However, much like they are typically wrong about a lot of things zoological (apes vs monkeys springs to mind), I am quite happy to put my elitist hat on and say they are incorrect here too.

I think people would be annoyed by an aquarium marketing itself as a pure zoo, but we could probably imagine a successful establishment styling itself as 'Britain's first Underwater Zoo'. Best not to give anyone any ideas though.....
 
I think people would be annoyed by an aquarium marketing itself as a pure zoo, but we could probably imagine a successful establishment styling itself as 'Britain's first Underwater Zoo'. Best not to give anyone any ideas though.....

Interestingly Living Coasts (with negligible mammal species) brands itself as Torquay's Coastal Zoo (and Aquarium) which isn't a million miles away from the scenario you're suggesting.
 
I'm interested in the relevant numbers because the last time I was there Knowsley seemed to have an insanely huge number of car-destroying baboons.

Yorkshire Wildlife Park's baboon numbers are increasing apace, not sure of a ballpark number and I guess they could have shipped some out.
 
Yorkshire Wildlife Park's baboon numbers are increasing apace, not sure of a ballpark number and I guess they could have shipped some out.

I doubt whether they have moved any on yet- no new holders of Guinea Baboon have been reported recently, at least as far as the UK goes. From memory, the ones in the UK all stem, either directly or indirectly, from the old Vincennes Paris breeding group- Port Lympne took some and then Edinburgh had the rest when the Paris Zoo closed for refurbishment. Edinburgh later sent half of their (increasing) group to YWP. I believe the rest at Edinburgh have now returned to Paris, so they no longer have them(correct?)- leaving the two current groups at YWP and Port Lympne. The latter has increased significantly too, from about 13 individuals when they took them on.
 
Why call yourself a safari park then ?

as far as cotswold africa alive etc this is nit picking they are quite clearly zoos as any sea life centre is quite clearly an aquaruim . this is no more than using words for marketing

You answered your own question. Safari parks call themselves safari parks because it puts a specific imagine in a general zoo-goers mind, and this is the image these zoos wish to market.

While your average zoo-goer might say that an aquarium is not a zoo, I think you'd have a bit of a difficult time finding people that don't think safari parks are zoos, especially when some have both words in their names (ie San Diego Zoo Safari Park).

~Thylo:cool:
 
Back
Top